Two Writing Courses That Shifted My Trajectory
As my dad has been preparing to retire and my son has been preparing to apply to colleges, I have been doing a lot of contemplating about the progression of life between high school and retirement and how there can be unexpected experiences along the way that shift our trajectory toward an unforeseen career.
During high school and my first three years of undergraduate work at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), I had no inkling that I would be teaching English or enrolled in advanced copyediting coursework postcollege because, at the time, English was one of my least favorite subjects. All of my English classes revolved around reading fiction books and writing literary analyses about them, and I never saw how either task pertained to the “real” world. Thus, I was convinced I would only take English classes to fulfill high school and college general education requirements.
It wasn’t until my senior year at UCLA that my perception of English began to shift. It was then that I was required to take two upper-division English composition courses for my Business and Administration Specialization: Media and Communications Writing and Business Writing. Those courses exposed me to a new facet of English—one with a real-world focus—and allowed my unforeseen love for communication and business writing to blossom, making me question if math and science were still my long suit or if it might be English instead.
After I completed the courses, they surprisingly remained at the forefront of my mind while I worked in fields unrelated to writing. Eventually, a decade and a half later, the classes lured me back to writing, and I started my writing business, Words.
Recently, I have been wondering if I would be the founder and owner of a writing business if I hadn’t been required to take the Media and Communications Writing and Business Writing courses. Unfortunately, I will never know the answer to that question. But, what I do know is that I have a genuine love for writing that radiates from my work, whether I am helping kids or adults fill in holes in their writing foundations and build upon them or helping business owners improve their online writing so that it embodies professionalism, and I don’t think that love would have developed if it wasn’t for the English composition courses I took at UCLA; they have been a beacon of inspiration, guiding me to where I am now—in the right place, pursuing a career in writing.
~ Christina Caputo
Founder & Owner of ★ W O R D S